


Onesidedness

by Chirivai



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: EXOPlanet - Freeform, HunHan - Freeform, M/M, MAMA Era Powers (EXO), Music Video: MAMA (EXO), OT12 - Freeform, side chanbaek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:07:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27508081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chirivai/pseuds/Chirivai
Summary: Sehun wasn't anything special: not especially smart, creative or good looking. Just another student with a foible for staying up way too late. And yet, for some odd reason, he is the one to suddenly wake up somewhere in a desert that seems to be anywhere but Korea, or earth, in fact.Together with  the strange boy that seemed to share his fate, Tao, they make their way through a soulless place and try to find some answers on how to get back.Instead, however, they discover more and more things about themselves and the world, they didn't quite consider plausible.Like having superpowers for example.And with every little thing that made the situation a little bit easier, like sharing this fate not with one but ten other people, there was something that made it harder again.Like finding out that all of them are part of an old legend and it is upon them to defeat an evil so the legend gets a happy ending.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol, Lu Han/Oh Sehun
Kudos: 4





	1. Received Blessings

_Crystal balls lay scattered at my feet. Their glass is dull, gray, and they seem heavy. Tiringly heavy._

_Beside this, everything around me is dark. I see no end, I see no beginning. I see no walls, I see no ceiling._

_But I hear. I hear a voice whispering, getting louder and louder with every word, telling a story:_

„ _When the skies and the grounds were one, the legends, through their twelve forces, nurtured the tree of life. An eye of red force created the evil which coveted the heart of_ _the tree of life, and the heart slowly grew dry. To tend and embrace the heart of the tree of life, the legends hereby divide the tree in half and hide each side. Hence, time is over-turned and space turns askew. The twelve forces divide into two and create two suns that look alike into two worlds that seem alike. The legends travel apart. The legends shall now see the same sky but shall stand on different grounds, shall stand on the same ground but shall see different skies. The day the grounds be kept a single file before one sky in two worlds that seem alike, the legends will greet each other. The day the red force is purified, the twelve forces will reunite into one perfect root, a new world shall open up.“_

_And as the story ends, the marbles come to life. Their dullness starts to shine, their grayness seems to fade and they soar into the air, around me._

_But there’s more. I am not alone anymore. There is someone here. Someone is watching me, I can feel their presence right behind me. It is not an evil one, yet they shouldn’t be here. I turn my head to see them, and for a brief second our gazes meet and we smile at each other. They are my friend. Their face is unfamiliar but I know them. I will know them._

_Their presence, their body vanishes and my knowledge, my memory of them with it._

_Slowly, I reach for the ball closest to me. One just like every other but the closer my hand gets, the heavier it feels and a feeling of fear is growing inside of me, clawing at me. Many, many voices scream in my head so I can’t form any words, taking my breath away and overwhelming me. I feel it spreading through my chest, my arms, taking over._

_No, this is not the one._

_I drop my hand and the fear dies down in an instant, like it has never been there. I try again but choose a different one, one further behind. One right in front of me but so far away; still, I stretch my hand out and the fear is starting to spread inside of me once again; making my every move, my every breath feel like a burden, intoxicating my every thought but now I hear a whisper. A whisper growing louder, turning not into a story but an incomprehensible chant; filling my ears and my body, defeating the fear and filling my lungs with fresh air, cleansing my head of any worries there had been; spreading a warm feeling throughout my whole body._

_This is the one._

_But I can’t reach it, my fingers are far away from grazing the surface._

_Yet, the ball moves. It floats to me until it hovers inches above the palm of my hand. I keep my hand stretched out like that, inspect it from here when it suddenly fills with a gray mist, giving the big marble the same color it had when it laid on the floor. Except the mist is alive and moves around, creating a picture of eleven boys, standing next to each other._

_I take at each one a close look but I have never seen any of them but one. One who just smiled at me, the one who was here. Still, like the others, he doesn’t spark any feelings or memories inside me, all of theem are just motionless faces staring into nothingness. None, except for one grim-looking boy, with dark hair and very serious features who even seems to be looking at me. Despite his appearance, something about him intensifies this warmth inside._

_Who are you?_


	2. Turn Back

The second the bell signaled the end of third period, Sehun made sure to get away from all these incredibly annoying people as fast as possible. With a rather fast pace, he walked down the hallway and some flights of stairs until he was finally at the one place in school that was somewhat calm: The basement. Nearly nobody, Sehun included, was allowed here, so the students that didn’t break rules in the first place never came here and even those who did preferred places that were at least a bit aesthetically pleasant and the old basement was a far cry from it. It amazed Sehun every time he came down here how it contrasted the rest of the school so drastically. Most of the lights in the basement hallway weren’t even lit, the brick walls were covered in dirt and writings from students who had graduated sometime before this century, and the basement always had this moldy smell; overall pretty unwelcoming, also for Sehun. But after all he didn’t mind because all this filth was the reason no one came here and it was also the reason why it was the perfect place for Sehun to take a nap; not even his friends would bother to look here for him.

He walked down the hallway to the third door on the right and turned on the light for the room. It was one of the only ones with a working lightbulb but most importantly it had an old couch that got used by the theater group ages ago. Everything in this room was some kind of prop for the theater group (that didn’t even exist anymore) but Sehun never gave them, and probably never will give them, a second look. Just some trees and masks, stuff like that. Instead he just closed the door behind him and threw himself straight on the couch, ready to take a nap while his classmates were suffering in PE.

But this peace didn’t last long. He didn’t even get to doze off a bit when he heard rustling of keys right in front of the door.

“Oh fuck- why now?.”, Sehun groaned to himself. As fast as in his tired state possible, he got up and launched himself behind the couch. It really wasn’t often that someone, mostly the janitor, came down here and even rarer that they needed something from this room. So rare in fact, that nobody except for Sehun seemed to know that the lock in this door was broken and a key was pretty much useless. But it still happened enough times that Sehun moved the couch a couple inches away from the wall so he could hide behind it when someone tried to get into this room again. What could someone need from here anyway? And why did they have to come here when he wanted to take a nap?

He rested his head on the wall and just looked up at the ceiling, waiting for the person in front of the door to figure out the mechanics and then just get whatever they need so Sehun could keep on taking his nap. He initially only planned to skip one period but if he didn‘t get enough nap-time he sure didn‘t mind throwing in another.

The ceiling was just as filthy as the rest of the basement if not even worse. There were countless moldy spots and a lot of insects making themselves home.

The door opens and the janitor, as Sehun found out, started rummaging through whatever stuff was also in here beside this couch but Sehun didn‘t pay him much attention as he was busy trying to identify insects. He knows he should feel nervous to get caught or something like that but he just couldn‘t find it in him to care; after playing video games for way longer than he should have he was just so goddamn tired. All he wanted to do was take a nap, and that was everything that was on his mind now, really. That and these insects as a distraction so he wouldn’t fall asleep right here, between dust and dirt behind a perfectly comfortable couch.

He was able to identify three of these insects as spiders and two as just nasty bugs (he never considered biology his forté) but one particular big was just impossible to identify, It looked more like a tiny black hole instead of an insect, he didn‘t see any legs or other body parts no matter how much he stared when suddenly, quite out of nowhere, something fell from the ceiling straight into his hands.

He froze in place and slowly looked into his hands, ready to scream at whatever hideous bug had decided it was wise to bungee jump onto him, just to see that it was… a stone? Did that fall from the ceiling? Confused he inspected it closer, not able to see much in the shadow of the couch but it felt really smooth. One side, at least. The other felt like it had something engraved into it, which only confused Sehun more. He furrowed his brows together and squinted at the stone in the hopes to be able to see anything but he was left disappointed at his eyesight. The existence of this stone that fell from the ceiling really didn’t make much sense to him (if it laid on the floor it could have been just another theater prop at least). The boy didn’t get to ponder about that topic for too long though as his train of thought was interrupted by the cranky voice of the janitor.

“I’ll bring this box with broken cables to the container. Will ya help me carry the couch, then, Lewis? ‘s about damn time we get rid of that old thing.”, his words were directed at someone called Lewis, obviously but caught Sehun’s attention nevertheless: Get rid of this couch? Now?

“Shit.”, he whispered in panic to himself, trying to think of how to get out of this situation. He never bothered to care to be nervous when someone went into this room because for one he was tired but also because he never thought someone would get the idea to look behind the couch, and he was still convinced by that. However, the situation was a whole lot different when there was no couch in the first place, and he knew the janitor would be absolutely furious if he found a student in the basement, what then would result in his mother also being furious at him for not only being at places where he shouldn’t be but also for skipping class in the first place. And if that would mean she would try to control him more after that and he wouldn’t be able to take a nap during school time, Sehun could not imagine himself surviving the rest of his time at school like that.

His thoughts spiraled down a dangerous path and with every second that passed and every thought that Sehun had a very uneasy feeling spread inside of him. God he needed to get out of here without getting caught, fast. This whole situation was driving him crazy enough that he heard blood rushing through his ears, and adrenaline kicking in and as much as he wanted to jump up and run he forced himself to stay on the floor, take a couple breaths and try to listen whether it was safe to come out of his hiding spot in the first place.

There was a lot of rustling and footsteps that grew fainter and fainter and he knew that was his chance. Sehun jumped up and sprinted right out of the door just to be met by who he guessed was Lewis.

“Young man, where do you come from?”, Lewis said with a justified amount of suspicion in his voice. Just like the janitor, Lewis was a small, old man, with a grey beard and grey hair that spread into all the directions of the wind. He missed a couple teeth but Sehun didn’t take much notice of it as he was struggling to gather an excuse.

“Uh- you see, uhm; the thing is-”, he stumbled over his words looking anywhere but at the old man in front of him, desperately looking for a way out. He felt the heat rushing to his face and probably spreading to his ears.

 _This is bad,_ he thought, _really, fucking bad._

Once again his mind started spiraling down at the possible consequences of his refusal to follow the rules and no matter how hard he tried to get together a proper excuse his mind wasn’t able to produce anything reasonable. God, his brain was so useless sometimes.

But much to his surprise, Lewis started to laugh.

“Caught ya doin’ somethin’ ya shouldn’ have?”, he asked with a mocking tone.

Sehun still wasn’t able to form a coherent sentence but this time out of sheer confusion. Why wasn’t that man yelling at him? He clearly broke the rules; this is not how he had imagined this. He will still get his punishment, right? The boy furrowed his brows and blinked at Lewis a couple times, absolutely not understanding the situation.

That reaction only made the old man cackle some more until his laughter was interrupted by a very not amused janitor.

“What are you doing here, boy? You have absolutely no business here and you should know that.”, his tone was very pissed and matched more Sehun’s prediction of how this was going to go; not that it made him feel any better.

The janitor’s bushy eyebrows were scrunched together and his eyes lacked any sign of friendliness. He opened his frowning mouth again to probably speak out Sehun’s death sentence but before he could say anything, Lewis started talking:”Calm down, my friend. This student came up to me a couple seconds ago asking if he could get something out of this room for his brother, who was part of the- what was it again? Theater group? Well, whatever group these props are for.”. In complete contrast to the still unhappy looking janitor, Lewis tone was friendly and warm; and Sehun couldn’t quite believe what he just heard. Did the man just save him from this situation? Did he do what Sehun failed to do, and came up with an excuse on the spot? But why would he do that? The confusion didn’t falter and Sehun did what he had been doing the past minutes: Absolutely nothing except of trying to form together a sentence.

The janitor glared at Lewis, then at Sehun, then to Lewis again and looked absolutely dissatisfied with the situation. Sehun feared he might not go along with Lewis’ excuse and still crush his freedom but after a while of glaring and looking between him and the old man his look softened a teeny tiny bit: His eyebrows lifted a bit and the wrinkles on his forehead faded a bit.

“Is that so?”, he started, his voice still being dominated by suspicion and a bit of venom, “well, I hope you found everything you needed and can get out of here. Now.”. He spoke slowly and made his point clear.

And Sehun got the message, nodded quickly and hurried away. When he was a couple meters away, he turned around again to see Lewis looking at him with kind eyes. He bowed a bit as a thank you, which earned an earnest smile from Lewis, and then went up the stairs he went down not too long ago.

Since Sehun’s nap fell short he still had some time to kill before he had to go back to class. For a while he pondered whether to skip the next class as well but since there wasn’t a place to take a nap anymore and he sure didn’t have any energy to do anything that required more energy than being present in class, he decided to ditch that thought.

Sehun wandered around the school, looking for something, anything to catch his attention or that might be a halfway decent spot to take an emergency nap but what he found instead was his friend Chanyeol sitting on a bench, probably waiting for some friends.

The rather tall guy, even though not much taller than Sehun, gave him a toothy grin the second he saw Sehun approaching and waved at him.

“What’s up, Sehun, my Senshine?”, he called out, cackling at the nickname. Sehun on the other hand rolled his eyes, yet couldn’t hide a small smile.

“Oh, not much. Just some really intense 15 minutes.”, Sehun casually mentioned and seated himself next to Chanyeol, who was still grinning.

Just like Sehun, Chanyeol was one to skip classes when he felt like it too but most of the time to smoke some weed or have fun adventures with some more friends. There wasn’t a person who disliked Chanyeol as he always seemed to lighten the mood; if not with his presence alone then with his pranks and jokes, and Sehun really considered him lucky to be one of Chanyeol’s closer friends. He wasn’t quite sure though what made the older like him in the first place. Most people kept Sehun on distance as he always looked like he was ready to murder anyone who looked at him the wrong way but still Chanyeol got close to him and even left a good word to his friends, though he rarely hung out with them. Not because they used the time they should be in class to smoke weed, admittedly he wasn’t quite innocent in that area either, but rather because they were way too draining for his tired brain to handle.

Chanyeol’s presence on the other hand had just the right amount of energy Sehun could work with, just like always.

“Made out with a freshman and nearly got caught?”, he joked and nudged Sehun in his ribs.

“No, I did not.”, Sehun answered and paused to shoot him a glare but was only met with another grin and expectant eyebrows that disappeared behind a light purple fringe before continuing telling about his highlight of the day.

“And while hiding behind the disgusting dust collector you decided to pick up a stone as a souvenir from your precious time with the couch?”, Chanyeol asked.

Not sure what he was talking about, Sehun followed Chanyeol’s gaze to his hands where he held the stone that fell into his hands a while ago.

“Oh, I completely forgot about this. I thought I dropped it when I ran out of the closet. But yeah it literally fell from the ceiling right into my hands when I was hiding”, his voice slowed down when he realized how stupid it sounded. A stone falling from the ceiling into your hands? That didn’t make any sense.

Chanyeol however, didn’t even seem to notice what a dumb explanation that was.

“Well, it looks pretty cool. Kinda like a key item in a comic or something, you know?”. He took the stone out of Sehun’s hands and held it in front of the younger’s face.

“Matches your eyes… and your hair. Who knows, maybe it is the item that will make you a superhero.”, Chanyeol said with a ridiculously wise tone that made Sehun snort.

“Yeah, matches my eyes and my hair. Your eyes and your hair if you let the purple grow out and about most of Asia’s eyes and hair.”

“Woah, my hair is definitely at least ten nuances lighter than you-”

“Chanyeol!”

The light-haired boy never got to finish his jokingly dramatic statement as he was interrupted by someone yelling his name. Both boys looked in their direction and when Chanyeol saw his friends, he laid the stone on the bench, waved and yelled back.

Even though Sehun absolutely didn’t feel like spending time with people, he started to enjoy it and decided to delay his nap to next period. Or rather, that was his plan until the group of students was spotted and small-talked to by his Physics Teacher, the teacher of the very subject he had next period. And for the rest of the self-declared break Sehun felt something in him die at the thought of having to go to Physics now. The world really didn’t want to grant him a proper nap today, huh.

Not too long after the teacher left, the bell rang and the group dissolved. Some going to the parking lot to do things the school certainly didn’t appreciate and some, like Sehun, going to class. He was already nearly in the building when he heard Chanyeol yell to him about his stone that apparently still laid there on the bench (didn’t he put it in his pocket when the others came?) but he, quite frankly, didn’t care enough, or at all to be exact, about a simple stone to walk the 60 meters back to Chanyeol to pick it up, so he just pretended he didn’t hear the boy and kept on walking to class.

But being more or less forced to go to class now didn’t cure his tiredness. His brain would get his sleep whether he was in Physics during Physics or outside of it. And so it came that he just couldn’t keep his eyes open; he didn’t understand one thing that was going on anyways right now, so why should he bother staying awake when he could just close his eyes and be at a way less stressful place?

In the hopes that his teacher wouldn’t pay attention to what he was doing he put his head on the table and just closed his eyes. Breathed in, breathed out, felt a stone in his pocket (so he was right, he didn’t leave it on the bench), felt the hard surface of the table and slowly forgot about what was going around him, except for a small worry that his teacher would notice that he’s not far from sleeping, until Sehun drifted away from reality.

He thought of Chanyeol and his big smile. He thought of his other friends, wondering what they were doing right now. He thought of Sushi and dancing and everything else that made him happy. But still he couldn’t quite appreciate all these things to its fullest. It was too late for him to stay awake but what if the teacher saw him? He already used up all of his daily luck with Lewis today, something had to go wrong.

Nevertheless his mind drifted. He traveled from thoughts to memories to a distant dream land. A desert, with dunes all around him, a clear sky above him with a blinding sun at the very middle, sand below him that buried his toes, and an oasis in front of him. One just like those that were showed in cartoons or pictures. A small lake with beautiful, crystal clear water and a palm right beside it, throwing an inviting shadow for those that were tortured mercilessly by the cruel, ever-shining sun. Sehun though didn’t feel the need to go there, after all it was a dream. The sun could shine and shine, the heat could rise as much as it wanted but he felt nothing. And when a breeze came he knew his hair was moving with it and he knew how pleasantly it should feel so he closed his eyes, turned his face towards the sun and imagined the very feeling. Imagined the warmth on his skin, and the nice wind embracing him. Sehun smiled, staying still for a few seconds before opening his eyes again and looking right into the sun. And as he looked at it, it color changed: From white to yellow, to orange to red; a dark, dangerous red that made him feel watched. But he was soon distracted by a grain of sand that flew right into his eye, making his eyes sting and tear. He turned his face down and tried to get the dry sand grain out of there when it struck him that he shouldn’t be able to identify it as dry. Just like he didn’t know what the sand beneath his feet felt like, he shouldn’t know what the sand in his eyes feels like; this was all a dream. His consciousness came back and he opened his eyes to return to reality but that was not the case. It felt like it, like he was there, like he was real but everything around him was wrong. He was wearing the school uniform he put on this morning and he sat in the chair he fell asleep in but the desk in front of him was gone and all around him a sandstorm was thrashing around.

At the sight, Sehun started to panic. What was going on? He woke up, didn’t he? Or was this still a dream?

The boy tried looking around but all he could see was this storm and it didn’t take long until there was sand in his eyes (again?) and he closed them. The confusion became too much and he started to panic. He felt his hand trembling and his breathing quicken so much, it seemed impossible to breath. The thoughts in his head were going wild, wondering if he was asleep, how he would wake up, what in god’s name was happening. And the more his thoughts circled around, not providing any answers at all, the storm seemed to get worse. The sand started scratch him, over and over again and it was all just so much; the confusion, the pain that he didn’t know if he could get out of here. His brain wasn’t even able to form a single understandable thought anymore and he felt like passing out any second.

Then, he felt something graze his fingers; not sand, no it wasn’t anything painful. At first he didn’t notice it really, but when he felt it again, and this time the feeling stayed, he felt something inside him calm down, even if just a bit. It was enough to encourage him to open his eyes and look at his hands carefully. And when he did, when he squinted at his hands (the sand making it impossible to do any more), there was a butterfly. A butterfly completely unaffected by the sand, the wind, his trembling hands, by everything. It was there, just sitting on his hands and as he watched it, he felt an odd tranquility spread through his mind. Calming his thoughts, eliminating his confusion, his panic, giving him peace. His breathing slowly went back to normal and his hands were steady again. And just like that, the storm also died down. It became less and less, the sand settling on the floor again and the world around him clear again.

But this feeling also had a massive negative side to it: It made the truth inevitable for him, he was very much awake. He was conscious, he was there, he was present. Albeit, to his dismay, not in his physics class though, but in a rocky desert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh so yea, this is my first ff on AO3, I hope it was okay?   
> I was kinda unhappy how the whole concept of the superpower stuff was never really used so I decided to write my own story about it and this is the very beginning!   
> Sorry for any language mistakes btw, english isn't my first language.  
> So uh, see ya!


End file.
